Faint Design

We
present the results of a preliminary eyetracking study
showing that light and ultra-light fonts are less legible
than their regular and bold counterparts in two
variations of text-background contrast (low vs high)
and two variations of text-background polarity (positive
vs negative). Oculomotor indicators like mean fixation
duration and saccade amplitude show that light and
ultra-light fonts also induce higher cognitive load. Our
study suggests avoiding light and ultra-light fonts for
body text.